It’s alive! Well sort of :)

Ever since I finished my research I must confess my interest in virtual worlds has taken a rather dramatic nose-dive. I was seeing a lot of ‘noise’ and very little progress. Maybe I got impatient, maybe after a year of reading paper after paper and blog after blog on virtual worlds all things started to look the same.

I’m absolutely convinced VW’s are here to stay and will be a increasingly interesting way of communicating stories as we move into the experience economy. I still keep track of things through Dusan Writers brilliant blog, Justin Gibbs updates on the news outside of Second Life and Pavig’s great twitterstream.

I haven’t given up on blogging either. Apart from being a marketeer creating concepts for new and exciting ways of communication (currently heavily into touch interfaces and augmented reality work-wise!) I’ve started a new project by the illusterous name of ‘Crinid’ (what’s up with those 6 letter names?!).

Crinid stands for Creativity, Inspiration and Ideas. The primary focus of the blog is to take charge of the ability to create great ideas and develop your ‘ideation‘ skills. Check it out if you think having better or more creative ideas (for writing, designing, presenting, building, promoting etc.) is interesting to you at crinid.com | the art of creating great ideas.

Anyways, thank you for reading and consider this blog officially closed for now :)

Posted on: February 9, 2009 | 1 Comment » |

In a recent interview with ZDnet, Linden Lab’s VP, platforms & technology Joe Miller get to show the corporate face of Second Life. A platform for collaboration for companies such as IBM and… well… IBM. Though the interview itself is not all that remarkable, I did get excited when Dan Farber asked the tough question:

Dan Farber: “Where do you see Second Life going in terms of, we talked a little bit about the fact that this is kind of the beginning of the 3-D world. How to you see it going forward?…”

In my imagination Miller must have felt uncomfortable for a moment. “Did he really just ask that?” However Dan made the error of throwing in one of Linden Labs often used red herrings: “Miles of simulated land” which gave Miller a nice opportunity to rehearse the numbers we keep hearing in most interviews, without actually have to disclose anything of a roadmap:

Dan Farber (continued question): “…Do you see Second Life going to 100 million users and I don’t know how many acres you have today, virtual acres“

Joe Miller: We actually have about 700, the equivalent of 700 miles, square miles of land represented by the grid today. It’s about 28,000, going on 29,000, individual CPUs that simulate a region of land that is 16 meters square. So again the technical architecture for the entire grid is inherently unbounded. We can continue to add land without bounds. We are not bounded by a sphere, the world can grow geometrically, and we can add many more elements of land over time and indeed that’s how we’re growing.”

So the though question is asked, but not answered. Better luck next time. Click here for the entire interview over on ZDnet.

Posted on: September 4, 2008 | 1 Comment » |

In August Linden Lab announced their intentions to build SLim. Though specifics are still unclear, it is likely to be a ‘light client’ - filtering the social functions such as instant messaging from the full experience of Linden Labs main virtual world Second Life. This to create a more smooth, more accessible social platform, and allow people to keep in touch with their friends regardless of their presence within Second Life.

If that is going to be the core function of SLim, ‘the other’ social world There.com has beaten Second Life to the punch. Today it announced 3 (rather) large innovations for the 3D social platform. It will develop a facebook application (like Gaia and ActiveWorlds have done before them), Mac OS compatibility and ThereIM:

There.com claims that ThereIM is the industry’s first instant messaging tool that allows members to travel between its virtual world and a 3D instant messaging application that sits on their desktops.” (more on Mashable)

The fact There.com seems to be the first to pick up on the earlier discussed ‘modular virtual world’ probably comes as no surprise to the runner-up in the Second Life interface competition; Jacek Antonelli. Jacek recently announced ‘Imprudence‘ - an open source Second Life interface improvement program. This initiative was largely motivated by the idea Linden Labs seems sluggish when it comes to implementing innovations (recent innovations Mono and Havok have been in development many, many months before even showing up in a beta phase, and the interface and orientation experience are still as poor as when SL launched over 5 years ago).

Either way, it’s good to see There.com pick up the phase in developing their platform to a truly social experience. It’s ‘big brother’ Second Life won’t be ‘beaten’ just yet, but perhaps it acts as a good incentive to get Linden Lab’s ‘show on the road‘.

Posted on: September 3, 2008 | 2 Comments » |

More blending of the real and virtual. While virtual worlds tend to emphasize their digital nature, augmented reality will do anything to hide its bits and bites background by blending almost seamlessly into reality. One of the most interesting applications of this augmented (or projected) reality was recently showcased by the Fraunhofer Institute.

Gizmodo: The best one is this stunning magic mirror, an augmented reality display that gets any piece of clothing and transforms its fabric in real time. Live, the effect was absolutely amazing, indistinguishable from a real mirror.

Honestly, when I was in front of it I just couldn’t tell the difference from a real t-shirt. It deformed like the one she was holding.

By recording the image and replacing the texture of the T-shirt ‘on the fly’ (real time) the illusion of the ‘Magic Mirror’ becomes quite convincing. A video can be found here on Gizmodo, and the full press release can be found here.

Posted on: September 2, 2008 | 1 Comment » |

‘Whether it’s casting magic spells using your mind or relaying expressions in real time, EmoKey links the Emotiv technology to your applications by easily converting detected events into any combination of keystrokes. EmoKey is a nonintrusive, lightweight, background process that runs behind your existing games or applications. EmoKey lets you create profiles that define how detections are mapped to keystroke combinations. Your profiles can then be saved and shared so you can use profiles that your friends have created for your favorite games and software. EmoKey profiles can be as simple as linking the Expressiv smile detection to characters such as “:)”, so that chat applications instantly know when you smile. Or they can be as complex as linking a “lift” command to a sequence of keystrokes that trigger a levitation spell in a game.’ Also planned is the ‘Emotive Game’ which sounds promising as it comes to ‘immersionism’: ‘Soon you can have the fantasy of having supernatural powers and controlling the world with your mind. Your journey will take you through beautiful forests, mysterious valleys, and fantastical temples-and this dramatic landscape adjust itself based on how you feel. Destiny, through the the magic of your mind, will be yours to command!‘ Emotive Game features bravely announced:

1. Manipulate & control objects by thought.
2. Wield amazing supernatural powers just by thinking of them.
3. Creatures in the game react to your facial expressions.
4. Environments change according to your emotional state.

Revolutionary as it may seem, in 1995 E. Nygma beat the to it. Watch the following promotional clip for his (experimental) technology:

Through VintFalken.com

Posted on: | No Comments » |

BREAKING NEWS

The University of W has conducted a survey amongst X residents/people within the Y demographic and found Z. Virtual World analyst/University professor A is not surprised by the outcome saying:

“Result Z has been a trend for the past 12 months, and our research confirms this. However Result Z counters the predictions made in article B in early 2006 and sheds new light on the actual facts in Second Life.”

Result Z has rather large implications for (outdated) assumptions C and D, and the University of W will continue its research. Does this mean extrapolation E or are we seeing the beginning of popular assumption F?

I thought I’d do a couple of news websites a favour by providing a template to use for any ‘amazing discoveries‘ done within Second Life by companies or universities. To use this template to its full effect, I provide you with the following guidelines:

1. ‘C‘ and ‘D‘ have to be related to assumptions made in 2005/2006 during the peak of inflated expectations
2. ‘Y people‘ can never exceed the minimum required participants for extrapolatable results
3. ‘Z‘ has to have the least impact on those with half a brain, but all the more on media looking to score some cheap shots against Second Life or virtual worlds as a whole.

You’re welcome.

Over the years the picture above has been the icon of Second Life in mainstream media. The Press Kit picture became synchronomous with poorly done research, assumptions and extrapolations. While 2006 the ‘flying Phallus’ made headlines repeatedly as the perfect example of what typically happens within virtual worlds, nowdays its seems every month some university or research firm publishes their ‘research’ into virtual worlds (and Second Life in particular). Take for example this German article (translated) which covers the ‘amazing discovery’ Second Life is ‘out’ amongst the ages 11 to 12 demographic… Are you as shocked as I am?

Posted on: August 27, 2008 | 1 Comment » |

One of my key interests in virtual reality, or virtual environments is the way it is able communicate an experience, linear immersive experiences (otherwise known as stories) in particular. We use stories for more than entertainment, stories hold tremendous value for social progress and preservation of culture (history), the industry (advertising), creativity and inspiration (fiction), expression and nearly any other field of human interest. To communicate these stories we’ve used a number of media types so far, and very effectively at that, but they all seem to struggle with the up and coming trend of the 21st century: Interactivity.

Traditionally, storytelling has a problem with interactivity. A linear path pre-writen by an author doesn’t play nice with the viewers/readers urge to influence and participate in such a story. The static medium of books and movies are ill-suited for this new ‘demand’ of the public we’ve gotten accusomed to through games and the internet.

I remember when I used to think the next step in stortelling would be ‘the interactive movie’. With the arrival of the DVD big Hollywood productions would offer open endings whihch could be influenced by the viewer. Does Batman go left or right? Does he chase the Joker or save the girl?  - these choices would give the user somewhat control of the movie and customize the experience. Looking back I’m not sure that’s an all that interesting way of watching a movie, constantly interrupting for different choices and shaping your own ending rather than appreciating the creativity of the director and professional writers. Apart from any technical implications of having to shoot thousands of possible scenario’s on traditional film.

The gaming industry however, has done a much better job of providing ‘interactive stories’, shaping the often linear experience through the narrative in games. One of my earliest experience of a game that had a compelling cross between gameplay a fiction was Dune (a story originally written by Frank Herbert and told in book-form on the war between 3 ‘houses’ over the planet Arrakis, or ‘Dune’). Through ‘cut scenes‘ and a linear storyline based on the missions you were doing more than just ‘play a game’- you read a pretty compelling book at the same time.

Later on I discovered games with a more prominent position for narrative, such as the ‘Baldurs Gate’ series by Bioware. The story was the game and some of these ‘RPG’s (Role playing games) allowed different paths towards different endings. With the RPG ‘Morrowind‘ the ’sandbox model’ was introduced, a completely open-ended world, not entirely unlike the virtual worlds of today where the player was in complete controll of nearly every aspect of the storyline. Eventually this has evolved in the almost Oscar worthy narrative in Grand Theft Auto IV, the incredible cinematic productions Blizzard creates for their major releases, and the latest from EA: Hollywood actors and screenwriters in their games.

This last step by EA is really blurring the lines between Hollywood and the gaming industry. For the third episode in the RTS (real time strategy) classic Command & Conquer ‘Red Alert’ the emphasis on the story and telling the story through both the game and cinematics is impressive. The list of A and B Hollywood actors shows EA’s dedication to bringing a truly cinematic experience to the interactive game:

• Gemma Atkinson (Hollyoaks)
• Tim Curry (Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Hunt for Red October)
• Andrew Divoff (LOST)
• Kelly Hu (X2, The Scorpion King)
• Jenny McCarthy (Scream 3, former Playboy Playmate of the Year)
• Ivana Milicevic (Casino Royale)
• Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean)
• J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man, Juno)
• Autumn Reeser (The OC)
• Peter Stormare (Prison Break, Armageddon)
• George Takei (Star Trek, Heroes)

Back to the problem of a demand for interactivity and the lack thereof in traditional story telling media. Though games are often concidered a genre on their own when it comes to telling a story, with developments as mentioned in the previous paragraphs its obvious the lines are quickly blurring. In ‘The Diamond Age‘ Neal Stephenson (author of the sci-fi novel Snow Crash) describes a different type of ’story experience’. One of the major themes of ‘The Diamond Age’ is the constant failure of Artificial Intelligence to copy human intelligence, and therefor the genuine experience. To compensate so called ‘ractors’ - real humans playing the part of interactive actors in the movies of the future. Think of it as a virtual, live theatre:

“…humans are able to earn a living as “ractors”, interacting with customers in virtual reality entertainments. Since ractors are more expensive than AI, the only reason to use them would be that the customers could tell the difference, implying that in the world of the novel, the marketplace of virtual reality entertainment has become one ongoing Turing Test, and software is continuously failing it.”

Now the logisitics of this seem pretty impossible - having a real life actor play the part of James Bond every time someone watches ‘Casino Royale’. But this is where virtual come back into play. Social worlds already somewhat facilitate this ‘racting‘ by making the medium social. In Role Play servers in the MMORPG World of Warcraft people are playing their character as thought they are this fictional character (i.e. behave as an orc would rather than how they would have responded as a person). Even social, non gaming spaces such as Second Life offers Roleplay on a number of levels - one of the most popular ones the type of roleplay in area’s such as ‘The Crack Den’ (SLurl) - an urban setting not unlike the setting of Grand Theft Auto. Each, real player plays the part of a gangster, a policemen, addict etcetera, and let the story develop from there. Taken from each players perspective each other real player is another ‘ractor’ with whom you share an interactive, open ended story.

What this could mean for the future of storytelling, and how to move these stories beyond the role play community into valuable integrations and applications for every day life (through education, business and entertainment) is still open - but to me its a fascinating process of improving communication. I’m planning to make this part of a series, exploring these applications of immersive storytelling through virtual environments and various aspects related to virtual storytelling.

Posted on: August 24, 2008 | No Comments » |

…because this phone seems kinda fun. Well, the packaging is anyways.

Posted on: August 21, 2008 | No Comments » |